September 24, 2008 by David.

CNN ran an article on a guy who figured out how to make shipping containers into affordable housing. I say HATS OFF to the creative thinking of Brian McCarthy and his three partners, Pablo Nava, Kyle Annen, and Mackenzie Bishop. I love it when an entrepreneur dreams up a way to make a viable business based on providing a real service to the underprivileged.

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September 4, 2008 by David.

Today I started work re-developing a website for a client that has an existing site on Yahoo. I’ve used 1and1.com as my website host for years and have been very happy with it. One of the things I do is have one account host multiple sites. In otherwords, DaveDrive.com, RamV10.com, MissSharlet.com, etc all are on one account. In fact, I have 19 domain names pointing to 12 websites.

Enter the new client with Yahoo. I’m looking all over in their Yahoo account and not finding any method of setting up the destination directory for a given domain name. In fact, I’m not even finding a way to register a second domain name for the account (she wants a second new site developed also). Finally I called Yahoo support and was politely told that he understood what I wanted but “Yahoo doesn’t do that.” EVERY domain name requires a separate account.

Let’s see, that means her two domain names would cost over twenty bucks per month. With 1and1.com it costs 4.99 per month - and the two domain names are registered for free! Plus, if in the future she wants to add more domain names or sites, it will only cost seven bucks per year per domain name. Now that is more like it!

I’ve used that “home” account for about five years and am still only using a fraction of the maximum of the disk space, number of eMails, download bandwidth, etc.

What I want to know is how does Yahoo get away with screwing people like that?

Long live 1and1.com.

If you want to get an account with 1and1 and you are in the mood to donate a month of free hosting to me, kindly click the little blue “hosted by 1and1″ button on the left side of this page. I have yet to find a hosting company that matches their hosting or domain registration prices - and I am even happy with their level service.

Now, that said, you have to understand one thing. You can’t have it all. There is NO business where you can have the lowest price without giving up something somewhere else. No company can afford to charge the lowest price and at the same time give instant high-quality customer service, the most extensive add-ins, the most sophisticated eMail system, etc, etc.

Myself, after five years with them I am happy with the customer service I’ve been provided by 1and1 and the other aspects of 1and1 - considering the price I’m paying. To get the lowest price I’m willing to live with the fact that they aren’t the easiest to get ahold of (thanks, but nearly everything I can solve myself), the most sophisticated eMail system (I use Outlook anyway), or that not every person on their help desk is “the best.” They have to cut somewhere to give those lowest prices and for me their balance of price and service and performance are ideal.

So don’t whine to me if they aren’t at the same time giving the highest level in every other aspect. My client cut their monthly costs to 1/5 of what Yahoo would have charged for domain registration after the 1st signup, they now pay 1/2 of what they would have for two websites, and as they add more domain names (for misspellings, etc) they will save 80% of the cost for each and every domain name registration. Not one of my clients have ever come back to me and complained once for anything to do with 1and1. In my books that is a fabulous deal.

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